Takeshi Manganji
Takeshi Manganji is a member and leader of the Manganji Dreams and the biggest rival of Kouya Marino. He was formerly a member of the Tobita Club and one of the teammates to Kouya's brother, Yuhya Marino. He is the champion of the current Asia Cup. Takeshi comes from a wealthy family that runs their own company, the Manganji Group. Takeshi’s Crush Gear is Gaiki, however in the first episode he is seen using Gougetsu to battle against Kouya. Appearance Takeshi is shown to have black hair and brown eyes. His hair is spiked upwards at the back and a few strands of hair protudes from his forehead (the number of hair strands ranges from four to six, and more rarely, three or seven). His usual outfit consists of a red jacket with several badges on it, and one of them has the word "GEAR" on the jacket's left sleeve. He also has a sleeveless black shirt (this is revealed near the end of the movie), dark blue slacks, gray socks and a pair of brown shoes. His younger self (four years ago), is seen wearing a white shirt with short red sleeves, black pants and a pair of green and white sneakers. He was occasionally seen wearing a red tuxedo, notably when he joined the Tobita Club and during his birthday party in the movie. Personality During tournaments, Takeshi is often seen to be calm and confident during Gear Fights. However, he does show some signs of passion when pitted against a truly skilled fighter such as Kouya . It is discovered that Takeshi is emotionally disturbed by Yuhya's death and is hiding his true feelings. Despite his cold personality, Takeshi has shown that he does possess a kind nature when he offers to give money to The Tobita club during its time of crisis. Takeshi also shows concern for Kouya's wellbeing during thier battle at the Manganji Building when Kouya almost fell off the roof. History Involvement in the Tobita Club Takeshi's interest in Gear Fighting began when he first came across the Tobita Clubhouse while he was riding with his bodyguard, Kurosaki. Inside Takeshi met Yuhya Marino ,a young boy who was practising crush gear. They became close friend's and Takeshi began to admire Yuhya Eventually Takeshi became a member of the Tobita Club .along with Alex Borgand Shingo Nagidori. Yuhya trained Takeshi to be a great Gear Fighter and encouraged him even when he was defeated in the World Cup finals. Takeshi also made a promise to Yuhya that after the World Cup they will train his younger brother, Kouya together. During the day of the Crush Gear World Cup Finals Yuhya is involved in a tragic accident and dies. The accident impacted Takeshi's life in a major way. Feeling abandoned and lost Takeshi took charge of training other members in the Tobita Club alone. As a result, he is seen as a cold-hearted boy who does not have any feelings. However, Takeshi’s situation is otherwise – he actually repressed his feelings and hid his sadness inside. He believes since he admired Yuhya so much that there is no one in the club who suffered from his death more than him. As Takeshi grew he eventually became the top player in the Tobita Club . The Fall of The Tobita Club Four years after the death of Yuhya Marino , Takeshi and Lilika are left in charge of selecting new candidates for the Tobita Club . Eventually Kouya Marino , Yuhya's younger brother is sheduled to fight for a place in the club, but shows up an hour late. Unimpressed with Kouya's lack of enthusiasm, Takeshi decides to make an example of him and challenges Kouya himself. To everyone's amazement Kouya ends up deafeating Takeshi, thus becoming a new member. However Lilika later found out that Takeshi let Kouya win, so he could quit and form a club of his own. This lead to the resignation of almost every member as well, pushing the Tobita Club to to the verge of closing Kouya soon finds out the truth and pleads with Takeshi to return to the Tobita Club , But Takeshi divulges that the Tobita Club is still controlled by the reputation of Yuhya , and if he stays there, he will never be recognised as an individual .He also states that because of Kouya's lack of respect for his team and the sport, he doesn't deserve to be called a Crush Gear Fighter. Battle at The Mangnji Building A few days after leaving the Tobita Club Takeshi hosts a Club Opening Party at the Manganji Building in the hopes of recruiting new members. Many famous Gear Fighter's are in attendance during the event including Jirou Oriza.a rising gear fighter. During the party an exhibition match is scheduled to take place between Takeshi and French Champion Bernard Stellan but Kouya shows up and challenges Takeshi. Believing that Kouya will be no match for him Takeshi accepts and they make thier way to the Manganji Rooftop Arena. Unbeknownst to Takeshi however, Kouya uses his brother's famous Crush Gear "Garuda Eagle" to fight with . During thier fight Kouya manges to hold his own against Takeshi, but unkowingly damages "Garuda Eagle" in the process. Eventually both gears are knocked out of the ring and the match is a draw. However Kouya almost falls trying to catch his Gear, he is luckily saved by Jirou Oriza . After the match Takeshi leaves via helicopter and states to Kouya that he had his chance and the next time they faced would have to be in a tournament. The Manganji Cup and The Mighty Gears Several weeks later, the Mangaji Group decide to host a new crush gear tournament known as The Manganji Cup ,in the hopes of attracting attention from several Gear Clubs and companies. Many major gear fighting enthusiasts attended the event, including the chairman of the Japanese Crush Gear Association. However the event is soon interupted by the unintended appearance of the newly formed Tobita Club They had intended to use the Burning Octopus Team's invitation, to compete in the tournament in order to spread thier club's reputation. However Takeshi refuses to let them compete in the tournament.. But he does offer them an ultimatum, in which case the Tobita Club are offered the chance to compete in an exhibition game against a team of his choosing, known as the Mighty Gears . Unable to convince Takeshi any further the Tobita Club accept his offer. The Mighty Gears are a team of Gear Fighters who not only excell in Crush Gear, but are also champions in different areas of sports. At first they were thought to be only a second string team of The Mangangi Group, but it turned out that they were a lot more skilled than they seemed. The first match Jirou faced his former friend and baseball teamate Hiroomi Taki . Taki defeated Jirou , but found out that Jirou's shoulder was still injured. Unsatisfied with his victory he requested that they play again when Jirou's sholuder was healed. The second match Jin was pitted against Kishin Okawa . Kishin a tactical genius, exploited Jin's anger in order to force Jin to make mistakes. This drove Jin to use an illegal microchip to boost his gears power output. but in the end Okawa won the match. The third match Kuroudo was put against Eddie Kobayashi . Eddie seemed friendly at first, and won the first round against Kuroudo seemingly by blind luck. But later revealed himself to be a pool shark who hustled other players into believing he was a novice. Eventually Eddie beat Kuroudo by using sneaky tactics. The final match was supposed to pit Kouya against Satoru Todoroki . But Takeshi intervened stating that the Tobita Club had already lost every match and it was unnecassary for Kouya to play.This drove Kouya to calli Takeshi a coward and a cheat. Takeshi laughs at Kouya and divulges the true intentions of the Manganji Cup, He reveals that the Manganji Group have invested 80,000,000,000 Yen, into building a top secret Crush Gear known as Gaiki .and that Gaiki would impact the world of Gear Fighting forever. Unphased by the announcement of Gaiki , Kouya challenges Takeshi to a gear fight. Believing that he would be the only one to profit from the match, Takeshi asks Kouya , if he is willing to risk destroying his brother's gear just to face him. Kouya accepts this possibility and the two begin their match. The first round of the match seemed close, until Takeshi shows Gaiki's special features. It turns out that Gaiki is a unique gear that can shift the Battery box from the back to the front in order to gain a huge boost of speed. Takeshi uses this technique to win the first round. During the second match Kouya chose to use the Dash wheels in the hopes he could fight Takeshi using speed against speed. For most of the match Kouya holds his own, until Takeshi reveales Gaiki's second feature. When it shifts its battery box from the front to the back it allows Gaiki to boost it's spin ratio. Not willing to surrender Kouya fights with all his might, only to be left defeated by Takeshi's mighty crush gear. In the end Kouya is brought to his knees sobbing in sadness over the loss he must accept. Business in Hokkaido Soon after the Manganji Cup Takeshi visits Gear Master Jin who is studying Garuda Eagle. Their he invites Jin to accompany him to the Manji Groups Research Lab in Hokkaido. He tells Jin that some of the best Gear Masters are already working for him, and that he owes it to himself to join the Manganji Group. Takeshi then gives Jin a plane ticket to use whenever he's ready. Unable to resist Jin eventually travels to the Mangji Goups Research Lab. While in Hokkaido Takeshi is seen competing in an open crush gear tournament. There he is pitted against local gear fighter Sasaki. Using Gaiki's VT Chasis, Takeshi makes short work of him. In the end Takeshi uses his "King Of The Dragon Fighter's" tecnique to destroy Sasaki's gear and win the game. After the match Takeshi notices that several members of the Tobita Club are in attendance.Their they see Gear Master Jin sitiing with Takeshi's Team. The next day Takeshi gives Jin a tour of the The Manganji Groups Research Lab. where he introduces several other gear masters. Such as Michael Boid from America and Yan Chan from china. As they continue thier tour Takeshi shows Jin the facility's Virtual Batlle Arena, which allows players to battle in a virtual simulation. Jin accepts and begins a virtual match. Little does he know that during his match, Takeshi's scientist is downloading Garuda Eagle's data files from Jin's Gear Box. Jin wins the simulated battle, but is unaware of Takeshi's true intentions. Eventually Jin catches Takeshi using the stolen data to find a weakness in Garuda Eagle . When he confronts Takeshi about it, he is told that in exchange for using the facility's resources, Jin would need to provide information, such as Garuda Eagle's data. Jin tried to retrieve the stolen data but was soon ejected from the facilty.The next day Takeshi finds out that all the data from the Master Computer has been deleted.(In a rogue effort by Jin , Kouya and Kaoru ) Trivia * In an interview with the series producer Naotake Furusato, he described the surname "Manganji" as having an image of wealth. He jokingly added that Japanese people are suckers for names that end in "ji”. "Interview Side B." Sunrise Inc. Retrieved on January 20, 2009. * He had never been disqualified for destroying Francis Ledger's Gear Great Wallaby despite the announcement saying if a Gear Fighter destroys their opponents Gear one more time they will be disqualified. * Has a liking to destroy his opponents Gear's everytime he uses King of the Dragon Fighters (although Kouya manages to avoid and survived the special attack few times). References Category:Characters (Crush Gear Turbo) Category:Manganji Dreams